I used Createspace for my book, too - it's in full color, and they're the only company that could do that at a reasonable cost.
The quality's great, too, so I don't think you're making a trade-off there.
Also, I second the vote for Kickstarter! I've got a drive on now for a limited hardcover edition of my new book and hopefully that'll work out as well as my last fundraiser there.

Reader M asked me: I was wondering what your experience with Lulu.com has been to self-publish your books? Did you engage (heh) them for marketing? For editing? Or simply for publishing?? This sort of inquiry is pretty much a FAQ at this point, so I thought I'd share a slightly-edited version ...

This will look complicated, but I bookmarked a post awhile back because it's such a clever way to automate order processing for any kind of digital file.
Here it is:
http://www.massivesqwertz.com/the-not-99-method-the-diy-ibookstore-alternative-for-indie-books-comics
...and in fact it's not complicated, once you follow the description through.
Edit: this was, erm, in reference to your audio books distribution. Silly me.

Reader M asked me: I was wondering what your experience with Lulu.com has been to self-publish your books? Did you engage (heh) them for marketing? For editing? Or simply for publishing?? This sort of inquiry is pretty much a FAQ at this point, so I thought I'd share a slightly-edited version ...

As I'm an old codger, this is my favorite thing about the way the world's changed - the barriers to publishing and marketing a creative person's work are so low now it's like a wholly different thing.
Oh. Right. It is.
Last time you blogged about this I pointed you at my Retropolis, which you seemed to like; since then I've gotten excited and made something a bit different, which is here: http://thrilling-tales.webomator.com/
That's a whole form of publishing that didn't exist when I was a wee sprat. As much as I'd still like my flying car... that's pretty cool.

My friend Joel and I got excited and made a thing. We announced it last night, and in about 12 hours, it's become more popular than either of us expected, so this seemed like a good time to revisit Getting Excited And Making Things. I don't know how many of you have been reading my lame blog lo...

You know that bleary eyed old codger who sits in his chair, staring out into space, and then suddenly comes out with a bizarre non sequitur that doesn't make any sense at all until you realize that he's just replied to something you said six months ago? That would be me.
My new old school:
Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual
http://thrilling-tales.webomator.com/
My second non sequitur: I actually drew the maps for the first D&D module of all time. How weird is that?

While walking through Comicon three or four years ago, I stopped to look at one of those booths that's filled with a hundred different T-shirts. Somewhere among the various superhero crests and clever nerd phrases and obscure sci-fi homages, I saw a fairly simple design: an Atari joystick, sitti...